An approach to the patient with multiple physical symptoms or chronic disease.

Gordon-Elliott, Janna S; Muskin, Philip R · Med Clin North Am · 2010

review · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

Doctors diagnose and treat disease; illness is the experience of, and response to, a disease by patients and the people in their lives. Discrepancies between disease and illness (eg, adjustment to the sick role, treatment-related difficulties, denial of medical illness, and psychiatric comorbidity) are prevalent, as are somatoform disorders and other conditions in which patients are invested in being understood as medically ill. This article reviews suggestions for physicians' responses to these patients and their dilemmas.

Medical subject headings